The present invention relates to a method for manufacturing tube-shaped packages made of flexible material, to an apparatus for carrying out the method and to a package obtained thereby.
Packages (containers) made of flexible material and used to contain coffee, biscuits and tea bags are known. In order to have a certain stability, these packages have a reinforced bottom produced by heat-sealing a preformed portion made of rigid material.
Packages having a square bottom obtained by folding a continuous strip are also known.
Packages are also known which have lateral reinforcements arranged on the inside or on the outside of the side walls, again with the aim of ensuring a certain stability for the package.
All these conventional packages suffer some drawbacks and in no particular:
producing their bottom is a rather labour-intensive task;
their stability is unreliable;
they lose their shape when the product is introduced;
they adopt shapes which are poorly suited to space optimization (transport, shelves).
The aim of the present invention is to eliminate these drawbacks and to provide a method which allows to manufacture packages with a reinforced bottom in a simple and easy manner.
Within this aim, an object of the present invention is to provide a method which allows to use an apparatus which is in-line with respect to the filling station or directly after the formation of the bag.
This aim, this object and others which will become apparent from the description that follows are achieved, according to the invention, with a method for manufacturing tube-shaped packages made of flexible material, characterized in that an annular portion is pushed inward in a U-shaped arrangement at at least one closed end of the tube-shaped package, said annular portion being at least partially heat-sealed to the remaining part of the package at facing portions thereof.